‘It’s in your genes’…or is it?

How much of our potential health risk is really influenced by our genes?

There appears to be a consistent message that flows out of mainstream media and orthodox medical professionals that suggests genetic risk is all-powerful and that there is almost nothing we can do about it.

The message we are consistently delivering is, genetic determinism is a train on the tracks that is heading our way at some point and we have to simply accept this.

In our view the common expression ‘it’s in your genes’ is significantly misunderstood.

Did you know that genes cannot turn themselves on or off? Genetic expression is overwhelmingly manifested in response to its environment.

This is highly empowering news.

Even if you are at a higher genetic risk of a particular disease process.

If you focus on changing your body environment and ‘bathe your genes in goodness’ then you can offset or mitigate a huge amount of your potential risk.

So, what is Epigenetics?

Well ‘Epi’ is derived from the Greek meaning ‘outside of’ or ‘around’.

Implying that there are additional features to your conventional genetics that are much more influential.

Epigenetics suggests that your health is much more impacted by physiological and cellular trait variations, as opposed to your family DNA.

This relatively new finding creates change in genetic activity, without changing our genetic code, also known as gene expression.

Gene expression allows the DNA to respond to the environment accordingly.

In theory, if you maintain a healthy lifestyle, this in turn will relate to your genes expression.

Suggesting that it is not just your inherited genes that could determine illness or disease.

Darwin’s evolutionary process is a perspective that most scientists agree with, as we do at Amchara.

Humans have developed and evolved over time.

If the Evolutionary process is something that you also agree with, is it not reasonable to suggest that throughout this long period our genetic code has done very well to get us this far?

This demonstrates that our genetic codes is very robust.

Furthermore, if we have evolved over hundreds of thousands of years, is it also a fairly logical assumption that the gifts of our environment such as food were critical in supporting our genetic evolution?

In our view there is clear evidence that Epigenetics can truly effect our well being and we should not solely rely on being told that we will inherit illnesses.